The subject matter herein relates generally to electrical connectors having flexible printed circuit board termination, such as to wafers.
Modern electronic systems such as telecommunications systems and computer systems often include large circuit boards called backplane boards which are rack mounted or retained in cabinets and are electrically connected to a number of smaller circuit boards called daughter cards. Electrical connectors establish communications between the backplane and the daughter cards. The daughter cards are typically separate from each other and meet different requirements for different purposes such as transmission of high speed signals, low speed signals, power, etc. that are transferred to the daughter cards from the backplane board. Cable connectors are typically electrically connected to various electrical connectors within the system. However, as the density of such systems increase, the number of cables increases. The cables add weight to the system and occupy a large amount of space. In some applications, such as military and aerospace applications, weight reduction and space reduction are important. In some applications, environmental sealing of connectors is important.
Some systems use flexible printed circuit boards (FPCBs) or ribbon cables rather than cables. However, termination of the flexible printed circuit boards is difficult. Additionally, while the traces may be tightly packaged within the flexible printed circuit board, such as on multiple layers, at the terminating interface, the traces are fanned outward to provide space for all of the traces/pads at a common edge. The flexible printed circuit board has a large size at such interface.
A need exists for a connector system that is cost effective and reliable that may provide a weight reduction and/or a space reduction.